by catt dahman
the infection was definitely spread by body fluids and once bitten, there was absolutely no chance of recovery.
In hours, Lori would turn into a monster and have to be put down before she
bit anyone. He took the moss that Bella offered and replaced the gauze with it;
Lori watched and nodded that she would try anything.
Robert bandaged the bite and suggested some aspirin for pain, instead of shots
of rum. Terry thanked Robert and Bella profusely, but they reminded Terry, in private, that bites always led to infection, and they told him that he should be prepared. Tearfully, he nodded. “But maybe the moss will do something.”
“Maybe,” Robert said.
The rest prepared MREs for their dinner, and the little treats inside made
them laugh a little as they traded various packets.
“You know she won’t make it, right?” Wheeler caught Robert alone and whispered that to him, watching for Terry over his shoulder. “It’s a hundred percent
if someone is bitten.”
“Bella thinks the moss will help. I don’t know. I hate to see Lorie in pain, but
yes, I know she’ll turn.Zero percent beat it. I know. Why did I get chosen to be the
medical guy?” asked Robert.
“I guess it just happened. You look and act smart, so people believe you when
you try to fix them. You do a good job; you are calm and reassuring. And because you just looked me in the eye and said you knew she would turn and that it was a hundred percent.”
“You don’t want someone doing first aid who has hope?”
Wheeler shook his head. “That’s a waste. Someone with hope will blow his
head off after too many loses. You understand it.”
Robert traded his kitty backpack for a larger one, and they carefully planned
what they would pack. Of course, his extra equipment was a large first aid kit that
he looked at witheringly. He thought about adding moss.
In the morning, Lori was still alive and human, and from sheer luck or because
of the moss, the wound kept draining, but her arm looked badly, the bite stunk and looked terrible, and she had a high fever.
With heavy packs full, the seven survivors warned Terry what would happen,
but he was resigned to staying with his wife until the end; Robert understood that.
They thanked him and wished him good luck.
Chapter 8
And Then There Were Seven
The building next door shuddered violently when the bombs went off and partially-crumbled. Rats and cockroaches skittered out of the rubble. Cory waved
a hatchet at them, making Lucy Ann laugh. Robert still didn’t know how he slept
through the massive bombing, but he did.
DeVon already explained that they wanted to get Lucy Ann some medication,
and Wheeler needed pills for high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Bella chimed
in that she was beginning to have withdrawals from her anti-depression medication; she was pale, shaking, and sweating.
“I want to wean off the meds. But I need some to help wean me off; it’s dangerous to just stop taking them,” Bella said.
“You can stop? Don’t you need them?” asked Robert.
Bella gave Robert a funny look. “Seriously? Anti-depressants? You think they’re
gonna make a difference and help me with my social anxiety and depression over being bullied in school? Really? Do you think bullying is an issue now?”
“I guess not,” Robert admitted.
“I just need enough to get clean of them. Robert, if I get too depressed, can
I talk it over? Deal?”
“Deal.”
One hospital was fairly close, but when they looked through the binoculars,
the group saw the building had fallen in; it didn’t look as if they could get anything there.
“There’s the other one close to the mall,” Robert said, “but it’ll take about two
days to get to the hospital; what do you think hospitals look like now? There’ll be
a bunch of zombie nurses, doctors, and patients.”
“They closed down. Maybe it’s okay.”
“And it’ll be guarded like the rescue station where no one else can come in
to get help; the stations are over loaded, and the guards shoot people who try to
get in.”
“Ain’t nobody left to guard anything; they bugged out like everyone else,”
Cory said.
“Robert, can you think of any other solution?” Wheeler asked. “Military or not,
if they have meds, which they do, then they have no right to withhold them since the
entire US is in chaos, and we bombed ourselves.”
Screw that. I’ll shoot a man or woman who stands in my way of getting things
we need when there is no damned reason to withhold medications.”
“Okay,” Robert said, “it’s no skin off their ass to let us get medication; it
isn’t like we are asking for heavy drugs and are trying to get high.”
“Speak for yourself,” Lucy Ann teased.
“Exactly. What the hell are they guarding now?”
They spent the next night in a fast food place after clearing it of a lone
shambler. Had the electricity been on, they would have cooked burgers and fries,
but they settled for some canned food they found.
DeVon sat in a corner and ate delicious garlic dill pickles from a jar as she stared into space.
Bella shivered and brushed sweat soaked hair off her face, cursing her anti-depressants and the reaction she was having. She intended to get a few bottles and wean herself off over a month or six weeks so she didn’t go through the misery of withdrawal. DeVon teased her, and said she looked like a junkie.
“I feel like one,” Bella groaned, “my head feels like there’s a strobe light in it.”
“That’s weird.”
Lucy Ann did her best to stay happy and helpful, but her hands and knees
crippled her. She mourned her husband who had treated her kindly; she had closed the door, walked away, and left him to turn and walk the room eternally, but those were the terms she could live by. Sometimes, she wished she had been sick and had turned as well.
Wheeler tortured the group by telling how his wife always made soul food, describing it so they could imagine butter dripping off a volcano of whipped potatoes; fried, thick pork chops; collard greens cooked with glistening bacon fat, and creamy macaroni and cheese.
He shook his head with the memory of his wife in the kitchen. “I was drinking
orangejuice and eating oatmeal with berries and some big, fat, greasy sausage,
the round flat kind.His wife came out of the bedroom, all dirty and moaning. Her eyes…well…this wasn’t her anymore you know, just a shell. That made me good and pissed off that this thing would take her body and use it after she was gone on to Heaven,” Wheeler explained the best he could.
“Amen,” Cory said softly.
“That’s a devil thing that controlled a body like a voodoo shaman. I picked
up the cast iron pan I fried my sausage in; the pan was still a bit warm. I angled
behind her and went to smacking the head the devil was a-using.”
The beating took a while and tuckered me out, but that body lay down but
didn’t get up. I covered it with an afghan, stepped around it, got my stuff, and
hot footed it out where I met Mr. Cory Gangsta C-Man. That wasn’t my wife any
more; it was a tool of the devil,” exclaimed Wheeler.
“Can I have an amen?” Cory asked.
“Amen,” voices whispered around him.
“My life ain’t been the same since I met this young whippersnapper.”
“Ha, Ha, you telling stories on me,” said Cory as he chuckled, “let me sha
re:
My old lady didn’t come home, so I figured she was creeping on me, and that he
and some other dude got eaten up. I hope so. That don’t make me bad.”
“I was good to her, I didn’t expect to treat her like a Queen, but I didn’t
expect to be backstabbed. So I grabbed my pow pow, got dressed, and went out.
There were these fools trying to bite me, so I shot ‘em. Bang. They were zombified.”
“Then, I saw these bad niggahs coming down my street, and they weren’t infected, but they were drug dealers, the kind that try to get the little ones into
drugs, kindergarten kids. Didn’t even think, just bang, bang, and they were dead.”
“Sounds fair,” Robert said.
“Don’t judge me, now; it was how things were. I went walking, just chilling,
and watching, and I saw this gal; her voice was raised like she wanted to scream
and yell but didn’t wanna bring the Zs close,” continued Cory.
She slapped the hands of those two men. One distracted her, and the other grabbed her tit, that sort of shit. One tried to kiss her, and it was pretty clear she
was about to be raped right there on the steps of an apartment building.
I sneaked up and shot both in the head. One had a dirty, stinking bandage
on the place he was bitten. That was how I met, drum roll, please, DeVon.”
“Yes, he saved my ass,” DeVon admitted, “I figured he must be okay if he
shot the bad guys.”
Wheeler nodded and said, “Lucy Ann lived not far down my street, and we
traded waves a few times.”
“She came strutting out of her house in sneakers, her gardening get-up
with a small pack on her back, that big straw hat she wears, and a mighty
looking spear that her husband used for some kind of fishin’. Seeing that raised my spirits tremendously, and I joined her. We were The Two Old Geezers’ Club.”
“And the others?”
“We found Kevin or rather he found us when he attacked three of the stiffs
who had us pinned. We decided to tag along with the hero. He’d suffered a loss and needed someone to take care of, I think.”
“We ran into Cory and DeVon, and that made five. Then, we found Bella
who was scared out of her mind since she ran from her family; at first, she didn’t
speak.”
“First, she wouldn’t tell us her name. Then, she said it was Bella Katniss
which according to DeVon and Kevin, were two names from popular books, but
hell, it don’t matter what name she uses. She’s a good girl,” Wheeler said.
“I appreciate you all taking me in,” Robert said.
“I can tell about people. You’re a good man, too,” offered Wheeler.
Robert felt like a weak man the next morning as he helped Bella on one side
since she was disoriented and Wheeler on the other so he didn’t over do it.
Kevin picked Lucy Ann up in his arms and carried her, causing her to weep
in humiliation even while she praised him.
That night was restless and painful in a barn off an old dirt road. Wheeler
caught the remaining chickens which were running wild, and the group roasted
the chickens over a small, hot fire, savoring the meat.
In the morning, they ate eggs they found in the chicken coop, along with the
left over chicken from the night before. They picked green peppers and dug small
potatoes and radishes to roast as well. The vegetables were about half raw, but
with the salt and pepper they saved from the MREs, the vegetables tasted fine.
Chapter 9
Three Newcomers
Outside the house, people yelled in the distance. Everyone grabbed weapons
and went out onto the porch to see three people: a woman in sweats, a teen in
jeans, and a man in the remains of a suit.They ran up the lane with creatures
following them at a fast pace. The three carried small packs, were dirty, had hollowed eyes, and wore a few bloodstains on their clothing; they didn’t look organized but
had angry, scared eyes.
“Do you have guns?” the teen asked, “I’m out of bullets; you’ll have to
kill them.” He was a good-looking kid, but cocky. “They’re coming.”
“The shots will bring more around. You brought enough as it is. Get
something, and help kill them,” Wheeler told the trio. He held up a bat, ready to
fight.
“I told you: I’m outta ammo. They surrounded us when the car ran out of
gas; we lost two people.”
“You pushed Crissy into them; I mean you sure as hell didn’t help her…that screaming; I’ll never forget it.” The woman spoke as she glared at the boy.
The truth was the teen boy blatantly pushed the girl, not out of the way,
but towards several of the creatures, telling her to hit them with the piece of wood
she had in her hand while he tried to find stray bullets to reload his revolver.
The girl didn’t hit any of them, just screamed and slapped at them as the creatures
ripped her apart.
It was a distraction that enabled the others to run, but the woman remembered how Crissy’s skin stretched before it ripped away in bloody shreds.
“I need bullets; I’m not magical; I was as scared as anyone; be glad we got away.”
“I can’t run any more.” The woman slumped to the ground, holding her thigh,
as blood seeped through her torn jeans. One creature grabbed her as it ran, and
she and an old man fell.
The zombies were on the two at once, and she kicked away with only a
painful bite to her thigh, but the man’s nose, lips, and face were torn off, almost at
once. He screamed a lot, too.
“Do something. I can’t stand it anymore; the damned things just won’t stop.”
Robert, Cory, Kevin, and Bella took their weapons, stepped into the yard,
waited until the zombies were right up close, and buried various tools into the creatures’ heads. The trio just watched without helping although melee weapons
were all around.
Bella ducked as a woman snapped at her; Bella spun and slammed her bat
into the woman’s back, making her fall. She beat at the skull.Cory had a
new weapon: a heavy metal spear with a very sharp point that was easily
inserted into an eye socket or into the brain. He took out two that way.
Kevin grimaced but used a machete that he liked to cleave a skull in
half. Wheeler and Robert used bats to smack the last one back and forth, until it
dropped. That took work, but they killed five and then stood back, exhausted
again as the sun set on another day.
Wheeler faced the three new people with fire in his eyes, and he said,
“Just because you find people with weapons doesn’t mean you get to check
out of the fight you brought to us.”
“Man, we’re tired,” the teen complained, “we ran a long way, but we have already fought them.”
“Everyone is tired,” Wheeler snapped, “and can you do any better than
calling people ‘man’? Didn’t you have home training?”
“You got food?” the man demanded, “I’m starved. We had tuna and
crackers, but I need something more than that.”
We would have helped, but like Tim said, “He’s out of bullets, but we
bugged out fast and don’t have anything.”
Wheeler turned to the newcomers. “You came running here, demanding
food and help, but you didn’t lift a finger to put the creatures down? They were you.
If you don’t have bullets, you find something else. I’ll bet ther
e were things along
the way you could have used.”
“Look, we’ve been running,” the teen said sullenly, “can’t you just help people?
This isn’t easy for any of us.” He leaned against a porch support and sighed; then,
he noticed DeVon came outside, and he watched the exchange.
“Hi, lookit, you got some kind of good looking woman. I’m Tim.”
He smiled at DeVon, his train of thought turning from food to sex as he looked at
the survivors.
Without thinking, he stood taller, brushed a hand through his hair, and smiled winningly. That action worked on girls when he was in high school and a star
baseball player.Just a few days ago, things made sense, and he was special,
desired, and popular; now, he wasn’t sure exactly how he fit in.
DeVon felt his eyes roving over her body. She held her bat tighter, not
liking this coward looking her up. “Get your eyes offa me.”
“Maybe we can trade something for food and…yanno.” He still leered.
“How many do you have with you?”
“Enough to kick your ass if you don’t straighten up and act right,” said Wheeler who taught school for a long time before retiring. He would be damned if some
smart-mouthed punk were going to get cheeky with him. Back in the day, he
would have this kid almost in tears with a strong dressing-down and a good oak paddle.
“Hey,” the other man spoke up, “I don’t need no bitchin’ from you, old man.
I’m tired and hungry, and all I see is an old nigger man, a whore, and a dude
who looks like he’s gonna shit himself.”
“This ‘nigger’ saved your worthless ass.”
“Hey,” said Tom as he motioned to the man who was with him, “calm down.
We don’t have to name-call. Sorry, man, Mister.”
“This old man and the rest took out the Zs pretty well, didn’t we? You get
to name callin’, and you can carry your ass on,” Kevin said.
“Ya stupid white cracker; I must be the invisible nigger, huh?” Cory asked.
His trademark smile was absent. “Don’t be judging me. I worked a job and attended community college, and maybe I ran with some tough guys and sported colors, but
I ain’t a wanna-be anything. And I don’t like you calling her a whore.”
